The present invention is directed to ready-made slipcovers for upholstered furniture, such as sofas, chairs, davenports, futons and the like, and, more particularly, relates to ready-made, one-piece slipcovers that define a separate pocket for the seat cushion of the chair or the sofa, with elastic or non-elastic cinching expedients to gather the material of the slipcover at the base of the sofa to provide a neat and better fitted appearance for the slipcover.
The prior art and printed literature, including patents on the subject of slipcovers stretches back over a time period that spans at least a century. As early as 1928, Arthur Cohen, in his U.S. Pat. No. 1,695,244, describes a unitary slipcover for a seat having a separable cushion which within certain limits may fit seats of different styles and sizes and which, when applied to the seat, has the appearance of a custom-made slipcover of the type in which a separate cover is provided for the seat cushion.
In the 1930 vintage, U.S. Pat. No. 1,825,909, J. Levi describes a slipcover with resilient inserts which tend to draw the cover tightly over the front face or the back for eliminating wrinkles, thus presenting a neat appearance. The design uses elastic strings and various fasteners, so that the cover can be made up in a single size or only a few stock sizes and be placed in position by the purchaser in but a few minutes.
Another slipcover that can be applied to chairs or sofas of many different sizes and shapes with portions that accommodate the corner shoulders of the furniture and with tension or means to draw the cover over the entire surface of the furniture to simulate a custom-made cover for the chair or sofa is described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,367,450. The patent discloses the use of elastic drawstrings throughout various take-up points in the slipcover, to present a tight and custom-fitted appearance.
Similar technology is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,667,211 to G. S. Krasnov, et al., which describes a ready-made slipcover which, notwithstanding variations in the dimensions of the furniture pieces, provides various means to avoid the slipcovers from becoming baggy or wrinkled in spots through, among other things, the expedient of providing the material in stretchable form or with threads extending therethrough at various intervals to draw in and to shirr the rear edges of certain sections of the slipcover. The various strings described in the prior art may be elastic or non-elastic, as in a case where two ties are provided at different spots on the periphery of the material which can be drawn together and tied to present a tight and fitted appearance.
Similarly, the 1989 patent to Perrin (U.S. Pat. No. 4,838,610), describes a protective cover for upholstered furniture that is not form-fitted like slipcovers, but which, unlike throws, remains in proper position. The cover is in the form of a shaped tub that fits over the furniture and includes at the bottom thereof, a drawstring to present a tight and neat appearance. The drawstring can be formed of strings or it can be in the form of xe2x80x9cVelcroxe2x80x9d strips and the like.
Other patent literature disclosing the use of elastic cords, stitching seams and bands and fasteners to better fit a slipcover to a chair or sofa, is represented by U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,825,909; 1,857,418; 2,884,993 and 5,320,407.
A one-piece slipcover with an especially made seat cushion pocket that is defined in the cover where the lip of the pocket at its entry is circumscribed by elastic materials is described in United Kingdom patent specification 1 300 582.
More recently, U.S. Pat. No. 5,664,831 has issued in relation to a semi-fitted, one-piece slipcover that has a seat cushion covering portion that is surrounded by a cinching element for reducing its effective peripheral dimension and a main body portion that covers the rest of the furniture with a portion of the cinching element of the seat cushion covering portion running co-extensively with a similar cinching element that surrounds the main body portion of the slipcover.
The subsequent U.S. Pat. No. 6,116,685 describes a modification to the slipcover in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 5,664,831 patent, in which the cinching element for the seat cushion covering portion does not circumscribe the seat portion, to avoid a shirring effect on the front-facing portion of the furniture which may be a chair or a sofa. The contents of the aforementioned U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,664,831 and 6,116,685 are incorporated by reference herein.
Despite the wealth of prior art on the subject of slipcovers, the present inventor perceives that he has invented a novel and unobvious combination of features that provide the ease, utility and versatility of one-piece slipcovers, but which attains a more fitted appearance, despite the universality of the design.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved one-piece slipcover that is better suited to provide a neater and better fitted covering for upholstery.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a one-piece slipcover that is easily and economically producable.
It is yet a further object of the invention to provide a one-piece slipcover that is easy to use and apply to upholstered furniture and which has the utility and versatility that it can be applied to a variety of different sized and shaped furniture.
A further object of the invention is to provide a slipcover with a specially defined seat cushion pocket that has an opening therein that is defined by a circumscribed resilient band to better hug and fit a seat cushion or cushions and to retain the fitted appearance despite a person""s numerous sitting down or getting up from the seat cushion of the furniture.
The foregoing and other objects of the invention are realized by a slipcover for a piece of furniture that includes at least a base and at least one seat cushion in which the slipcover defines a pouch-like seat cushion covering portion including a first cinching element comprising a circumference adjusting member for varying the peripheral dimension of the seat cushion covering portion and a pouch-like, main body portion for covering the base of the piece of furniture with the main body portion having its own second cinching element comprising a perimeter adjusting member.
The perimeter adjusting member surrounds the circumference adjusting member and the two members have a section thereof that run substantially parallel to one another but with a predetermined spacing. Thereby, when mounted on the piece of furniture, the circumference adjusting member of the covering cushion becomes tucked under the seat cushion while the section of the perimeter adjusting member remains exposed.
The cinching or adjusting members can be implemented in a variety of configurations, including where both members are made of elastic materials, in the form of endless elastic bands. Alternatively, the circumference adjusting member is constructed of an elastic band while the perimeter adjusting member is constructed of a non-elastic, non-stretchable material. As a further alternative, the perimeter adjusting member is constructed of an elastic band except for the parallel running section which is constructed of a non-elastic, non-stretchable material.
For those embodiments that use the perimeter adjusting member where at least a portion is non-stretchable, the invention provides several pairs of fastening ties that can be used to gather the material of the slipcover about the piece of furniture to provide a more fitted appearance. The appearance can be of ruffled or smoothed material of the slipcover.
As used herein, the cinching or adjusting members refer to endless, or non-endless, string-like, band of material that is held in a pocket made in the material or sewn to the material or intertwined stitch-like, through the material. The cinching elements can be elastic, so as to gather the material inward, or can be drawn non-elastic, but pullable to change the circumference of either the seat cushion covering portion, or the main body portion. A line of stitching connecting pieces of the material of the slipcover, in and of itself, does not constitute a cinching or an adjusting member. Similarly, the fastening ties which can be drawn toward one another and thereafter tightened and knotted together, do not constitute cinching elements in the sense of the present invention.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description of the invention which refers to the accompanying drawings.